This week’s episode started with a video package highlighting all the drama that is the Maryse love square. The monkeys in the truck are well-known for their ability to knock out a top class video package but even they can’t polish this turd. To be fair, they weren’t given much to work with. Lucky Cannon, Yoshi Tatsu and Ted DiBiase Jr make Vin Diesel look like Mads Mikkelsen.

The big question is whether Maryse has chosen Ted or NXT. Surprisingly they get this out of the way immediately. Matt Striker asked for her decision, to which she said “look at me”. In an absolutely vintage Striker moment, he took this literally and proceeded to check her out. What she meant was look at me, I can get any man I want, see ya never Ted. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a relationship in WWE end with such little fanfare, Ted doesn’t even show up to dispute her answer.

Besides, why have one charisma vacuum when you can have six?

The rookies assembled for this week’s challenge, The Power of the Punch. Sadly, it wasn’t Regal putting his brass knuckles on and decking everyone. Simply put, it was one of those test your strength punchbags from a funfair. Each rookie got one punch, rookie with the highest score won. Byron Saxton got us underway and set the tone with a score of 649. The crowd booed. Jacob Novak went next and absolutely whiffed it, scoring just 456. This was Maryse’s reaction:

“Couldn’t break the skin of a rice pudding, that lad,” said William Regal, barely containing his disgust. The booing intensified. Up next was Darren Young, who barely beat Jacob with 469. Maryse insisted she could do better. Conor O’Brian took the lead with 770 but was immediately trumped by Titus O’Neil who smashed it with 801. It was down to Lucky Cannon but instead of taking a swing, he insisted he was above it. He’s here to win championships, which is fair enough in my opinion. However, they don’t take kindly to that sort of talk on this embarrassing talent show that no one is watching and Lucky got a DQ.

That meant Titus won! He took the four redemption points. I think you get two magic beans to the redemption point.

Lucky took out his frustration at being forced to partake in this wheelie bin fire of a show on Maryse, but Yoshi came out to defend her honour or something. Lucky laid out the challenge to his love rival and Yoshi accepted. An epic main event awaited.

I Am What I Am

WWE love to flog their films on NXT Redemption and this week’s shill slot was given to That’s What I Am, which I’ve never heard of but am now fascinated by after seeing this trailer. It’s set in the 60s and follows this geek at school as he falls for a girl, but he then has to work with an even bigger geek for a project and you can tell he’s a bigger geek because he’s ginger and wearing big fake ears and Ed Harris is a teacher but he might be a paedo and Randy Orton is threatening to go to the papers. It’s like four films in one and none of them sound any good. Incredibly, it has a rating of 7.1 on IMDb.

Titus O’Neil v. Darren Young

It’s interesting to see the humble beginnings of Titus and Darren before their legendary battles in 2016. I still get chills when I think of this seminal promo from Titus, it’s the Cane Dewey of this generation.

Back to reality and Darren cut a promo on his way to the ring about how Hornswoggle is a “pint-sized joke”. In a fantastic bit of Randy Orton-esque over-explaining, Darren then pointed at Hornswoggle and said “you’re a joke.” Glad he cleared that up, I suppose he could have been talking about the 6’6 Titus. Todd Grisham pointed out this is height discrimination and he won’t stand for it. He didn’t even crack up as he said it, fair play.

It’s only the sixth episode but it’s already the third time Titus and Darren have been in the ring together. It’s probably because they’re the best the show has to offer in-ring wise, but that says a lot about the quality of the show. The match was par for the course, just a few minutes long and ended when Darren was distracted by Hornswoggle, allowing Titus to roll him up. Strong as an ox 6’6 guy wins with a distraction roll-up.

After the match, Darren attacked Titus and grabbed Hornswoggle, but was talked out of beating him down by his pro, Chavo Guerrero. Like I could believe that, if anyone on this show is going to beat up a dwarf, it’s Chavo Guerrero.

Pretty Fly For A White Guy

Last week, JTG wagered with Vladimir Kozlov that he could make Jacob cool. So, this week JTG introduced Headcrack Novak and well, the result is above. Look at the sheer boredom on the faces of those kids. This is what William Regal made of it all:

“I feel so sorry for this show.”

Headcrack heard all of Regal’s comments about him being a terrible excuse of a pro wrestler and he wouldn’t stand for it any longer. Regal sat in silence the entire time, watching Novak, infuriating him further until he appeared to challenge Regal. Only then, did Regal speak: “the last thing that lad wants is me turning him into a bloody vegetable.” It’s certainly not the last thing I want.

Jacob Novak v. Byron Saxton

The match was nothing, but Regal cut a brilliant promo on commentary about being an old pro. The sort you’ll be familiar with is you seen his spell as final boss on NXT. He goes into detail about what the ring means to him, why he wipes his feet before a match and his struggle to put his past behind him and reinvent himself in a new role.

Jacob bounced Byron off the top rope, followed up with two kicks and finished Byron with the softest big boot ever. It was similar to how you’d push open a door when your hands are full. The crowd couldn’t even be arsed to boo anymore.

Rated-R Feels

This show wasn’t even the worst thing to happen to wrestling that week. It took place a few days after Edge retired. His retirement speech is replayed in full and it’s a strange thing to watch. It’s so sudden that no one, Edge included, seems to know how to react. There’s total disbelief on the faces of some fans. There’s some nice nods to those with the benefit of flash photography, The Brood and even the live sex celebration. Edge was one of my favourites as a kid and I still remember reading his blogs on wwe.com when he was recovering from a broken neck. It’s good to see he’s settled into a life outside WWE now, having children and giving them mad celebrity names like Lyric.

Lucky Cannon v. Yoshi Tatsu

Here we are then, the battle for Maryse even though she doesn’t want either of them. She sat in on commentary and buried both of them, twice comparing Yoshi to a five-year-old before going on a remarkable tangent about how Lucky’s “Da Lish” nickname reminds her of a French dish of fried potatoes, gravy and cheese. I googled this and it turns out she was talking about Poutine. I am pretty confident Maryse has never eaten Poutine in her life. Not that I will either. Why ruin some chips and gravy with cheese? What is wrong with Quebecers?

This battle for the ages went a whole four minutes before Yoshi won with a diving spinning heel kick that almost made contact. The King of Kings was victorious and even got a kiss from Maryse for his trouble.

It’s pretty obvious she did it just to spite Lucky but who’s got the heart to tell him? He was made up, bless him.